In Racial
Melancholia, Racial Dissociation critic David L. Eng and
psychotherapist Shinhee Han draw on case histories from the mid-1990s
to the present to explore the social and psychic predicaments of
Asian American young adults from Generation X to Generation Y.
Combining critical race theory with several strands of psychoanalytic
thought, they develop the concepts of racial melancholia and racial
dissociation to investigate changing processes of loss associated
with immigration, displacement, diaspora, and assimilation. These
case studies of first- and second-generation Asian Americans deal
with a range of difficulties, from depression, suicide, and the
politics of coming out to broader issues of the model minority
stereotype, transnational adoption, parachute children, colorblind
discourses in the United States, and the rise of Asia under
globalization. Throughout, Eng and Han link psychoanalysis to larger
structural and historical phenomena, illuminating how the study of
psychic processes of individuals can inform investigations of race,
sexuality, and immigration while creating a more sustained
conversation about the social lives of Asian Americans and Asians in
the diaspora.
